Few things strengthen a community and its place in a local area quite like food and fellowship. Attracting regular guests (and occasional crowds) also means dependable revenue for the causes you support and the work that you do.

Here are our tips for creating a neighbourhood hub with vibrant social fixtures, and how your kitchen can be at the centre of it all.

Regular events

Planning and budgeting are always easier when you have a reliable financial forecast. Having a calendar of regular events and groups can offer that certainty. It might be that you run your own, or you could rent out your facilities to external group. Those might be:

• Baby and toddler groups, where parents of young children can meet and introduce their little ones to socialising
• Support groups for people experiencing bereavement, addiction, mental health challenges, or poverty
• Cinema clubs, which can deliver a big screen experience at a fraction of the ticket price, and can also be the perfect place to sell food and drink
• Women’s Institute

In order to keep attendances high and keep bookings coming in, you must make sure that your kitchen can support and create an excellent experience. That means being able to produce the volume of food and drink required, and do so hygienically, without causing the kitchen team undue stress in the process.

So, consider whether your kitchen is capable. If you have a domestic-style kitchen, with materials like vinyl-wrapped MDF, it won’t stand up to heavy use and will peel and deteriorate, absorbing moisture, and becoming hard to properly clean. Not to mention, that will leave an environment that few with want to rent or volunteer in.

For a robust, revenue-generating kitchen, Steelplan recommends a polyester powder-coated mild steel carcass, with a stainless-steel worktop. Its materials stand up to heavy use, and its design makes thorough cleaning easy, all while maintaining a warm, welcoming, and accessible space for diverse users.

One-off and occasional events

Seasonal, occasional, or standalone events can be ‘all-hands-on-deck’ affairs, which take a lot of planning and effort, but can be hugely fruitful for fundraising and for building an even stronger link with the wider community.

Those could be summer fetes, bakery sales, or sports days, or screenings and events around sporting events, particular summer fixtures like Wimbledon, The Olymics, or international football tournaments.

The chances are that in those cases, your kitchen will be producing a lot of food and drink, and aside from the question of hygiene, consider your kitchen design and equipment. To accommodate multiple users who can work without getting in each other’s way, an efficient kitchen layout is vital. To produce high volumes of catering, the right choices in things like hobs and instant water boilers will ensure that you have the necessary equipment.

Need more inspiration or help with your kitchen design?

Our design experts are ready to advise — we are always happy to discuss how to get what you need from your kitchen, and we can even work with you to create a 3D mockup of a new kitchen so you can really visualise what the design would look like in your building.

Call on 0208 254 0090 or email [email protected] to arrange a friendly, no-obligation chat with a member of our team.